Description

Abbey Games is an independent games studio founded in 2012 and situated in Utrecht, the Netherlands. They devote theirselves to creating games full of original meaningful gameplay, drawing inspiration from classics of the strategy genre. Their first title, god game Reus, was released in May 2013 and has sold over 1,000,000 copies. Since then it released turn-based strategy adventure Renowned Explorers in 2015. The studio currently works on an unnanounced third project. In the meanwhile Abbey Games releases expansion packs for Renowned Explorers.

Projects

History

In the beginning

Somewhere in 2011, four computer science students decided to team up and start a company. We started working on Reus in an old and dark university basement. We quickly moved to the Dutch Game Garden, the center of the Dutch Game Industry in Utrecht, the Netherlands.

Reus

Reus is Abbey Games' debut. The idea of Reus spawned at the end of 2011. It would be an ambitious project, but also one we felt we had to make. In the flickering artificial light of the basement of the University of Utrecht, Reus grew from nothing to something. Its long development cycle is unique for a starting indie studio. Even though Reus' scope is ambitious, we felt that now is the time for a project that we are passionate about. During 2012 and the start of 2013 Reus and Abbey Games developed alongside to a product that feels complete and triggers our pride.

Renowned Explorers - International Society

The project Renowned Explorers was a huge adventure both in theme and in process. As any good follow-up album it saw enormous pressures both from without and within. As a young team we decided that we had to do everything differently from Reus. While this put a lot of stress on us young monks, we never lost eye for the most important thing: outputting a great game. And while the quality of Renowned Explorers has been nothing but confirmed after its release, the studio took a big hit from its lack of appeal: because of the colorful characters and theme people saw the new game as a casual adventure game, something you would find on Facebook or mobile perhaps. In reality Renowned Explorers turned out to be one of the most hardcore strategy games with hundreds of players logging over more than 100 or even 200 hours, constantly discussing new strategies among each other on the Steam forums and elsewhere. This situation warranted a long post-release cycle and as a result Renowned Explorers is still updated and expanded with plans reaching into 2019. This approach, along with word-of-mouth generated by the active player base made sure that Abbey Games can safely count Renowned Explorers as its second success.

Selected Articles

"It's a great idea, and the set-up suggests a light-hearted sense of adventure that tactical turn-based games rarely seem to pursue" - Phil Savage, PC Gamer

"
...it’s an intriguing game of procedural exploration, with a few tricks concealed within its tactical trousers.
" - Adam Smith, Rock, Paper Shotgun

"
Abbey Games may not be a name you immediately recognize, but its god game Reus received some much-deserved attention. The studio has announced its new project, Renowned Explorers - International Society...
" - Jordan Devore, Destructoid

"
There are some truly brilliant concepts on display here, and this is the first fantastic god game the genre has seen in a long time.
" - James Murff, Gamefront on Reus